Bosnia and Herzegovina 2022 General Election

ODIHR assessed the count negatively in 36 of the 168 polling stations its observers watched, mainly because polling station commissions understood the procedures poorly, and records that because of incorrect or missing results protocols the CEC ordered a recount at some 20 per cent of polling stations. The CIK reports that on seven of its orders a control count was carried out at 2,458 polling stations before the results were determined, and on six further orders a recount at 150 more, for 2,608 in total, out of 5,903 polling stations designated for the election, of which 5,418 were regular. The 2,458 figure includes the 2,239 polling stations counted again for the Republika Srpska presidential race.

On 24 October 2022 the Main Counting Centre found 35 falsified ballots at three polling stations: 16 at polling station 104B025 and 10 at 104B028 in Bratunac, and 9 at 101B008 in Sekovici. At polling station 105B019 in Srebrenica every ballot marked for one candidate lacked the required signature of the polling board member issuing ballots and those ballots were declared invalid. The CIK filed a criminal complaint against unknown persons with the BiH Prosecutor's Office the same day covering the Bratunac, Sekovici and Srebrenica polling stations, and on 25 November 2022 the Prosecutor's Office and SIPA inspected the Counting Centre and seized the Bratunac documentation. The sources give different totals: the CIK reports 35 falsified ballots at three polling stations found on 24 October, while a footnote in the ODIHR final report states that on 24 and 25 October the CEC reported to prosecutors 73 falsified ballots at two polling stations in Bratunac, one in Sekovici and two in Brcko District. The figures above are the CIK's, as the body that found the ballots and made the referral.

Decision 05/22 of 27 July 2022 imposed amendments to the BiH Election Law adding campaign integrity rules and new CEC sanctioning powers. On election night the High Representative signed two further decisions in Sarajevo. Decision 06/22 enacted 30 amendments to the Federation Constitution, numbered CX to CXXX, including the composition of the Federation House of Peoples and how cantonal assemblies elect its delegates. Decision 07/22 amended Chapter 9A and Articles 10.10, 10.12, 10.13 and 10.16 of the state Election Law to match, changing the number of House of Peoples delegates and the formula by which cantonal assemblies allocate them. ODIHR found that the July changes came too late for effective implementation and that the election-night amendments challenged legal certainty, because the full impact of the cantonal assembly vote was not foreseeable to contestants or voters.

ODIHR reports that the secrecy of the vote was often compromised by the inadequate layout of voting premises, potentially compromised by the positioning of voting screens in 25 per cent of observations and by the layout of the premises in 14 per cent, and that voters did not always mark their ballots in secrecy in one of every four observations. Observers recorded people other than commission members keeping track of voters in 12 per cent of observations, and in some 2 per cent of polling stations observed the same person assisted more than one voter, contrary to the Election Law. Some 51 per cent of the polling stations observed did not provide independent access for persons with physical disabilities. Guaranteeing the secrecy of the vote is one of the report's priority recommendations.

The CIK's own report describes public media attacks on the institution, physical threats to its members, and disinformation and malicious reporting aimed at confusing the public and discrediting the Commission and its members, as additional pressure on officials; it dates the attacks to immediately after the order of 10 October 2022 and its correction of 11 October, and records that a member of the Commission was verbally attacked at a press conference on 10 October by the then Presidency member who was a candidate for President of Republika Srpska. ODIHR describes public verbal attacks against CEC members as unacceptable, notes that several members raised concerns about the gender-based nature of those attacks, and records that political leaders repeatedly said they would move to dismiss CEC members without citing legal grounds. SNSD filed criminal complaints against several CEC members on 11 and 19 October 2022.

SDS, PDP and For Justice and Order alleged widespread election-day irregularities and on 6 October 2022 asked the CEC to recount every vote in the race. On 10 October the CEC instead ordered a control count, a procedure the Election Law distinguishes from a recount, covering all 2,239 regular polling stations counted for that race, including polling stations in Brcko District offering the Republika Srpska ballot. It was carried out between 13 and 26 October. Milorad Dodik lost some 2,400 votes and Jelena Trivic gained some 500, and three further candidates each lost more than 200, against a preliminary gap of about 29,000; the CEC published the preliminary result of the race on 27 October, confirming Dodik's victory. ODIHR found that the control count identified many technical errors and some indications of potential malpractice but that these irregularities did not largely affect the results. ODIHR records that the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina reviewed on appeal seven CEC decisions on recount requests and rejected them all on the merits, and that the rejected requests included PDP and SDS requests to annul the Republika Srpska presidential result and repeat the election, which were rejected as unfounded. The CIK separately records five requests to annul and repeat the election, all of which it dismissed as inadmissible.

SNSD representatives repeatedly questioned the legitimacy of the 10 October 2022 order and alleged it was politically motivated. The CIK records that the Administrative Division of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina dismissed the request to review the order's legality and delivered a judgment rejecting the request to annul it as unfounded, and that the appeal against the 10 October order and its 11 October correction was likewise rejected as unfounded. ODIHR assessed the control count as conducted in an open and transparent manner and the Main Counting Centre as professional, while noting that several stakeholders questioned the CEC's impartiality.

Presidency members Zeljko Komsic, on 11 October 2022, and Sefik Dzaferovic, on 26 October 2022, asked the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to review the Federation constitutional amendments and the Election Law amendments imposed on 2 October 2022 by Decisions 06/22 and 07/22, arguing among other things that they contradicted earlier Court decisions and challenged legal certainty and the equality of the vote. The Court dismissed the requests for interim measures on 1 and 2 December 2022 and, on 23 March 2023 in case U-27/22, held the amendments compatible with Articles I(2), II(2), II(4) and III(3)(b) of the BiH Constitution, Article 1 of Protocol No. 12 to the European Convention, Articles 5 and 7 of ICERD and Article 25 of the ICCPR.

The CIK's criminal complaint of 24 October 2022 was filed against unknown persons. The Commission's reports record only the referral and the Prosecutor's Office inspection of 25 November 2022; they record no indictment, no conviction and no finding on who produced the ballots or on whether the falsified ballots and the invalidated Srebrenica ballots were part of a coordinated scheme.

ODIHR's campaign monitoring records that foreign leaders featured in domestic campaign coverage, listing the visit of the President of Turkiye to Sarajevo on 6 September 2022, discussion of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the Brdo-Brijuni summit on 12 September, visits by the Presidents of Croatia and Serbia on 13 and 15 September, and a meeting between Milorad Dodik and the President of the Russian Federation on 20 September, and it notes that some outlets reported on misinformation and disinformation. Neither the ODIHR final report nor the CIK reports attribute any operation directed at this election to a foreign state, and appearances in campaign coverage do not establish interference. The CIK does record a hacking attack that took its INDOC information and documentation centre website offline, and threatening emails including four false bomb warnings sent from an unknown address, but it makes no attribution for either.